1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor carrier tray for use in a burn-in test of a semiconductor such as a CPU or memory, and to a burn-in board, a burn-in test method, and a semiconductor manufacturing method which use the semiconductor carrier tray.
2. Description of the Related Art
A burn-in test is carried out on each of individual IC packages (semiconductors) on which bare chips cut out from a wafer are mounted. A burn-in test is a continuity test for determining whether or not there is breakage or the like in the internal wiring of an IC package under a predetermined high-temperature/acceleration condition, that is, whether or not the wiring patterns are formed in conformity with the specifications. Only the IC packages that have passed the burn-in test are sent to the final operation test.
As shown in FIG. 15, in the burn-in test, inspection is conventionally carried out by accommodating individual IC packages 3 into a large number of IC sockets provided on a burn-in board 1. For instance, as shown in FIG. 15, each of the IC sockets 2 is composed of an accommodating portion 4 for accommodating the IC package 3, a lid member 5 for holding the IC package 3 inside the accommodating portion 4, the lid member 5 being applied with a force urging it toward the inner side of the accommodating portion 4, and the like. Provided on the bottom surface of the accommodating portion 4 are a large number of contact pins 6 that abut contact terminals 3a, such as BGAs (Ball Grid Array), of the IC package 3 to achieve electrical continuity.
Further, examples of publicly known documents relating to conventional IC sockets include Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 09-232057 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-357622.
As described above, in the conventional burn-in board 1, the IC socket 2 is provided for each individual IC package 3. Due to the structural constraints imposed by the necessity of accommodating and holding the IC package 3, there is a limit to the downsizing of the IC socket 2. Further, since the IC socket 2 occupies a rather large area, it has been difficult to increase the number of IC sockets 2 that can be placed on the burn-in board 1 of a predetermined size than is conventionally possible. Thus, the only way to carry out a burn-in test on a larger number of IC packages at once than is conventionally possible is to increase the size of the conventional burn-in inspection device itself.
Further, the conventional burn-in test method requires, in the preparatory stages prior to the test, the operation of mounting the individual IC packages 3 one by one into the IC sockets 2 and also closing the lid member 5 for each individual IC socket 2. Further, in the post-processing stages after the test, the method requires the operation of opening the lid member 5 for each individual IC socket 2 and then extracting the individual IC packages 3 one by one. The conventional method thus has a problem in that the test takes much time and trouble.
Further, the expensive IC socket 2 must be provided for each individual IC package 3, which makes it difficult to reduce the cost of the burn-in board 1 itself.
Further, the contact pins 6 provided in the conventional IC socket 2 are of a type exerting a high contact pressure on the individual connection terminals 3a of the IC package 3. Thus, due to the necessity to reliably hold the IC package 3 in the IC socket 2, the IC socket 2 itself tends to become rather large scale and large sized in structure, and also it is difficult to apply a uniform contact pressure to all of the connection terminals 33a. 
Further, in the case of the conventional so-called pogo-pin type IC socket, the load (elastic pressure) per one pin is large at about 0.294N (30 gf); accordingly, in order to uniformly connect the several hundreds of pins provided to the IC socket 2, it is necessary to press them down with a large force using the large-scale IC socket as described above. Thus, a large stress acts on the soldering portion of the burn-in board 1, and when the burn-in board 1 in such a state is placed under the high temperature environment during the burn-in test, extremely large warpage occurs in the burn-in board 1 itself.